Thrice Married Serial Adulterer Finds Gay Marriage To Be As Temporary As His Ability To Not F%*k Women Who Aren't His Wife

"I think this [gay marriage] is a temporary aberration that will dissipate. I think that it is just fundamentally goes against everything we know." - Newt Gingrich, who would like remind you that marriage is between one man and one woman whom you abandon riddled with cancer on her hospital bed while you fuck the shit out of your next wife whom you later cheat on while screaming with Godly moral outrage about the infidelities of the president.

More Americans now support than oppose marriage rights for same-sex couples, according to a bi-annual survey from the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago. Marriage equality is favored by 64% of those under 30 years old, but by only 27% of people older than 70, the survey found. The New York Times (tiered subscription model)/Reuters (9/28)

Thursday, September 29, 2011

Pastor Harris Himes (above, at the microphone), the most well-known anti-gay activist in Montana, has been charged with six felony counts of theft and fraud related to a business scheme he allegedly orchestrated with another pastor.

Ravalli County Sheriff Chris Hoffman said Harris Himes turned himself in Wednesday morning after learning that there was a warrant for his arrest. District Judge James Haynes issued bench warrants on Tuesday for Himes and James "Jeb" Bryant after attorneys for the state Office of the Commissioner of Securities and Insurance filed six felony charges against the two. The charges included theft, fraud, conspiracy to commit both, failure to register a security and failure to register as a salesman of same. According to court records, Himes and Bryant claimed to own a business, Duratherm Building Systems, and promised at least one investor a large return on his $150,000. But the investor claimed to have never received any returns or confirmation of sale, nor could he get his money back.

According to the above-linked story, Harris frequently testified and campaigned against proposed pro-gay legislation. We know him here on JMG as part of the Not In My Bathroom anti-transgender rights group.

In February of this year I posted video of Himes testifying that homosexuality was a "sin worth of death" and therefore gay people should not be allowed to rent homes in Montana. Thanks to Himes and others, Montana's state legislature then passed a bill outlawing all LGBT rights laws, at any level in the entire state.

RELATED: Himes is also the president of the far fringe-right Montana Eagle Forum and in his dual role as pastor/lawyer he performs pro bono work on behalf of the anti-gay Alliance Defense Fund. He blogs at Andrew Breitbart's Big Government site.

UNRELATED: Two nutjob anti-gay whackos taken down on the same day! I am chortling until my chortler is sore! O frabjous day, indeed!

Does bigotry trump civil rights? Should a clerk in NY state be permitted to say her religion won't permit her to sign marriage licenses for gay couples? What if her religion isn't too thrilled about blacks marrying whites, or Jews (they did kill Christ, you know), and let's not even start with the Muslims. And why stop there? Fundamentalists think Catholics worship Satan. Are we really going to force a fundamentalist clerk to sign off on a Satanic wedding?

As far as I'm concerned, the woman should find another job. She took a job that entails signing off on weddings. She can't pick and choose which ones she likes and claim her religion as a defense. Why stop there. Why not let accountants, and doctors, and ambulance drivers, and pilots, and waitresses refuse to serve gay couples? Where does it stop?

Of course, the bigots want this very outcome. They made the same argument about slavery, you know - the Bible says it's a good thing. Yeah, we all know how that ended. And the Mormons discriminated against blacks until the 1970s. So what if a Mormon still believes in the traditional teachings about blacks evil spawn, can clerks refuse to marry black people now too?

This is just another example of how the Republican party, and its spawn, are destroying civil society in America. They're tearing this country apart, town by town. It's very sad.

REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT IN AN 'OPEN FOR QUESTIONS' ROUNDTABLE
Map Room
11:40 A.M. EDT

... MR. SIADE: This question comes from Florida: Since bullying is increasing in an alarming way in the U.S., what can be done to avoid further discrimination or bullying within various racial groups, particularly for Hispanic kids in school?

THE PRESIDENT: I think it's a really important question. We actually had the first-ever conference on bullying here in the White House -- because for young people it's hard enough growing up without also then being subject to constant harassment. And the kind of bullying that we're seeing now, including using the Internet and new media, can be very oppressive on young people. So what we've tried to do is to provide information and tools to parents, to schools, to communities to push back and fight against these kinds of trends. And a lot of the best work has actually been done by young people themselves who start anti-bullying campaigns in their schools, showing how you have to respect everyone, regardless of race, regardless of religion, regardless of sexual orientation. And when you get a school environment in which that's not accepted by young people themselves, where they say we?re not going to tolerate that kind of bullying, that usually ends up making the biggest difference, because kids react to their peer group more than sometimes they do adults. And what we need to do is make sure that we're providing tools to schools and to young people to help combat against bullying, and it's something that we'll continue to work on with local communities and local school districts as well.

MR. LERNER: So you're going to have a conference on bullying in the White House?

THE PRESIDENT: We already did. We had it -- it was probably four or five months ago. And we brought in non-profit groups, religious leadership, schools, students themselves. And they have now organized conferences regionally, around the country, so that we can prevent this kind of bullying from taking place. ...

MR. LERNER: Mr. President, on the Defense of Marriage Act, also called DOMA, this comes from Kevin in North Carolina. He says: I'm a gay American who fell in love with a foreigner. As you know, due to DOMA, I'm not permitted to sponsor my foreign-born partner for residency. And as a result, we are stuck between a rock and an impossible situation. How do you intend to fix this? Waiting for DOMA to be repealed or struck down in the courts will potentially take years. What do binational couples do in the meantime?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, we made a decision that was a very significant decision, based on my assessment of the Constitution, that this administration would not defend DOMA in the federal courts. It's not going to be years before this issue is settled. This is going to be settled fairly soon, because right now we have cases pending in the federal courts. Administratively, we can't ignore the law. DOMA is still on the books. What we have said is even as we enforce it, we don't support it, we think it's unconstitutional. The position that my administration has taken I think will have a significant influence on the court as it examines the constitutionality of this law. And once that law is struck down -- and I don't know what the ruling will be -- then addressing these binational issues could flow from that decision, potentially. I can't comment on where the case is going to go. I can only say what I believe, and that is that DOMA doesn't make sense; it's unfair; I don't think that it meets the demands of our Constitution. And in the meantime, if -- I've already said that I'm also supportive of Congress repealing DOMA on its own and not waiting for the courts. The likelihood of us being able to get the votes in the House of Representatives for DOMA repeal are very low at this point so, truthfully, the recourse to the courts is probably going to be the best approach.

They have a point. Why is the Obama administration still defending DADT in court? We need to strike DADT down so that President Perry can't bring it back in the future. My guess is that DOD is the bad guy here (if we strike it down, they may want their back benefits), along with DOJ (wouldn't want to limit the President's future prerogatives, would we?). The President needs to stop listening to the Pentagon and the lawyers and do the right thing to make DADT go away now, or it's going to keep haunting him up until the election.

Today the Log Cabin Republicans filed a response to the government's motion to vacate the federal district court judgment in the case Log Cabin Republicans vs. United States. The motion is attached, and the government will have seven days to respond.

"On September 20, 2011, the repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell, became effective. On that very day, the government filed a motion to erase the 9th Circuit's decision that by the government's own admission prompted and accelerated the repeal. The government should be ashamed to take this step.

While President Obama, Defense Secretary Panetta and other leaders proclaim the benefits of repealing Don't Ask, Don't Tell, the government is inviting the Court to rule that the case never existed. Government policies may come and go, but our Constitution endures. So should the district court's declaratory judgment that Don't Ask, Don't Tell was unconstitutional. We are filing this brief to explain to the court of the important reasons why it should not dismiss the appeal as moot and should not vacate the judgment."

Wednesday, September 28, 2011

Openly gay Sen. David Norris has won the nomination for the presidency of Ireland, a largely ceremonial post.

The independent politician won the support of Dublin city council last night and will run against six other candidates next month. He said he was “absolutely thrilled” at the news. Mr Norris 67, pulled out of the race in August over controversy surrounding a letter of support he had written for a former partner who was convicted of raping a 15-year-old boy. But earlier this month, he announced he would stand after receiving a “consistent outpouring of public support”. He told the Irish Times: “If I can make this kind of comeback I hope to God as president I’ll be able to help the country make the kind of comeback that it and its people deserve.”

The U.S. Census Bureau released today new statistics on same-sex married couple and unmarried partner households. According to revised estimates from the 2010 Census, there were 131,729 same-sex married couple households and 514,735 same-sex unmarried partner households in the United States.

The results of the 2010 Census revised estimates are closer to the results of the 2010 American Community Survey (ACS) for same-sex married and unmarried partners. The 2010 ACS estimated same-sex married couples at 152,335 and same-sex unmarried partners at 440,989.

The new, preferred figures revise earlier estimates of same-sex unmarried partners released this summer from the 2010 Census Summary File 1 because Census Bureau staff discovered an inconsistency in the responses in the 2010 Census summary file statistics that artificially inflated the number of same-sex couples. In addition, a breakdown of couples who reported as same-sex spouses is now available. The summary file counts originally showed that there were 349,377 married couple households and 552,620 same-sex unmarried partner households.

Finally we get the other side of the story in the case of the Fort Worth high school student allegedly suspended merely for saying he finds homosexuality morally wrong. A spokesman for an LGBT teachers organization reports in the Dallas Voice:

He [the class teacher] reports (and has reported to his school) repeated acts of anti-gay harassment by several students that occurred this and last year, including by a group of four specific boys in this class, of whom Ary is one. Among other incidents, Mr. Franks maintains a “word wall” for his German IV class on which he posts articles and images from several journals, including the German magazine, Stern. One of these articles concerned gay rights in Germany, and included a photo of two men kissing. The group of four boys concerned was sitting near this image immediately before Mr. Franks found it had been ripped from the wall. The student and his lawyer are now asserting that including this photo among the others constituted his teacher’s “imposing acceptance of homosexuality” in his classroom. These students subsequently took every opportunity to denounce homosexuality in class, frequently without context; that is, with the topic having otherwise been broached.

Read the entire linked article and you'll learn what many of us already suspected - that the student in question has a long history of Christianity-fueled anti-gay misbehavior. Clearly, if the teacher's story is true, the suspension was the inevitable result of a running pattern of harassment. The case has been trumpeted on virtually every Christianist site as evidence of rampant homofascism, but you can bet that the teacher's side of the story will see zero attention.

Additional reports from our Employees and Customers onboard flight 2274 during a stop in El Paso on Sunday now confirm profane language was being used loudly by two passengers. At least one family who was offended by the loud profanity moved to another area of the cabin. Although we have reports of what Customers characterize as an excessive public display of affection, ultimately their aggressive reaction led to their removal from the aircraft. We do not tolerate discrimination against anyone for any reason. In this situation, their removal was directly and solely related to the escalated conversation that developed onboard the aircraft.

Leisha Hailey says:

In no way were our actions on Southwest Airlines excessive, inappropriate or vulgar. We want to make it clear we were not making out or creating any kind of spectacle of ourselves, it was one, modest kiss. We are responsible adult women who walk through the world with dignity. We were simply being affectionate like any normal couple. We were on the airplane less than 5 minutes when all was said and done. We take full responsibility for getting verbally upset with the flight attendant after being told it was a “family airline.” We were never told the reason the flight attendant approached us, we were only scolded that we “needed to be aware that Southwest Airlines was a family oriented airline.”

Numerous courts are considering whether it is permissible under the U.S. Constitution to deny same-sex couples federal recognition of their legal marriages, and in some cases whether it is permissible to withhold the right to marry in the first place. A recent panel at the College of William and Mary Law School found legal experts divided over whether it was preferable to address these questions through the courts or the political process. The Washington Post (9/25)

Archbishop Timothy Dolan of New York has sent a letter to President Barack Obama warning of "a national conflict between church and state of enormous proportions," if Obama does not retreat from his opposition to the Defense of Marriage Act. Dolan said he believes sanctioning marriage equality for same-sex couples will lead to discrimination against those who oppose it on religious grounds. USA TODAY/Religion News Service (9/23)

Hate group leader Lou Sheldon (Traditional Values Coalition) deluged the media with calls to attend his press conference on the attempt to repeal SB 48. Exactly ZERO reporters showed up. The two people facing Sheldon are gay activists from the Courage Campaign. SNORK!

At his first fundraiser in San Jose, President Obama took aim at Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry, without naming the Texas governor by name, and was critical of the recent GOP debates. He said the 2012 election will be "a contest of values."

"Some of you here may be folks who actually used to be Republicans but are puzzled by what's happened to that party, are puzzled by what's happening to that party. I mean, has anybody been watching the debates lately? You've got a governor whose state is on fire denying climate change," he said, to applause. "It's true. You've got audiences cheering at the prospect of somebody dying because they don't have health care and booing a service member in Iraq because they're gay.

"That's not reflective of who we are," Mr. Obama said. "This is a choice about the fundamental direction of our country. 2008 was an important direction. 2012 is a more important election."

It's interesting that Romney, Perry, Bachmann, Gingrich and Cain all refused ABC News' request to comment on the incident, even though Santorum, Huntsman and Johnson have since condemned it. Why won't the other condemn the verbal abuse of a US service member serving in combat? Or do Romney, Perry, Bachmann, Gingrich and Cain only love some of the troops?